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Tuesday, 18 October 2011

Now this is my kind of story. Worthy of a John Le Carre novel written after a night on the sauce. Members of Parliament, Diplomats of various nationalities, shady Russians called Ivan, unknown British Intelligence Officers with names like x, y and inexplicably... u. You can imagine the confusion when the judge asks...

"So what did 'u' say..?"

"I said nothing your honour..."

"No, i mean 'u'..?"

"Me..? As i said your honour..." Etc... Etc...

I could go on but you get the drift. Yep, every now and again a Member of Parliament gets his... 'Ahem'... member out, pillow talk ensues, and months later it turns out that his secretary has more Russian FSB contacts than Vladimir Putin ever knew he had. For you young people, FSB is what we used to call the KGB, the Soviets, the red menace, commies if you will... Either way, they are spies, the whole damn lot of them, and it would seem they are still capable of fielding a good old fashioned honey trap for diplomats and politicians to get their teeth into.

The Cameraman from Russia Today... I spied on his movements for hours. Turned out he was as bored as i was, hanging around street corners.

You have probably realised that i have mentioned no names. There is a reason for this. I don't want to drink my morning Latte at 9am and go to bed tonight glowing like a lava lamp following an ingestion of Polonium, courtesy of a shady bloke called Boris Tvistabollokov... Oh no. I will leave the fearless reporting to the fearless reporters. And anyway, i have a bad back. So why am i telling you this?

Well i found myself in London this morning covering the deportation hearing of said honey trap/Spy/Secretary. Deportation? i hear you say... Well yes. You see the lady in question was not a high class hooker, a disenchanted socialist bent on the downfall of British imperialism, nor was she an upper class English rose, turned by the FSB whilst her diplomat father traded cocktails at the Russian Embassy. She is a Russian... From Russia, with a well known liking for bumping uglies with diplomats on a regular basis, yet still found herself hired by a British MP, given a pass for the halls of Westminster, and all this with added benefits from said MP which involved pillows, beds, and oodles of sweat.... I will say no more.

I am not making this shit up... Honest.

So there i was, standing in my usual place on the street corner, whilst the plot of an early eighties Bond film played out inside the hearing rooms. And having filmed the protagonists entering and leaving the building, i guess that a few spying careers may have gone down the gurgler. I imagine it thus...

"Ah... Mr Bond, i've been expecting you. I saw you on the BBC News..."

But no matter. The world of treachery, spies and the shagging of important people by undercover Mata Hari's goes on as it always has, and always will. And if a good looking woman approaches me and introduces herself as Pussy Galore, then sign me up... MI6 with a license to kill. But if i were a Member of Parliament, in my fifties and over the hill, and were romanced by a pretty 19 year old Russian girl with a keen interest in defence matters, alarms would start ringing, and so would the phone on M's desk.

But i guess some people just don't see it the way i do... Nope, instead of hosing them down with bullets from my trusty Walther PPK, I shall do so through the lens of my camera. Bring the whole sordid mess into the glare of the public eye... But from now on, if you call me on the phone or meet me in the street, the phrase you must remember is...

"The wind is cold on Westminster bridge..." And i shall reply, "It is the winter winds from the East..."

Thursday, 13 October 2011

The Olympics are not very far away, so i have a feeling that i will be filming a lot more sweaty sports people over the coming months, in their attempts at golden glory and possible MBE's. Today, i found myself in Guildford, Surrey, with a differing array of sports junkies testing out the facilities at the sports centre. I lugged my lardy arse around various gymnausiums... yes... gymnausiums, basketball courts and swimming pools all in the name of news. And if it's got an Olympic theme all the better.

Getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick... or Fencing.

Now i know all too well that my sporting god days are well behind me. My sixpack has turned into a party seven ( for those of you old enough to remember them ) and i start to sweat at the merest hint of having to carry my camera kit more than a couple of hundred metres. So it was with relief that my news day was all in one place, for those would be olympians to show their prowess at poking people in the eye with sharp sticks, or fencing as they like to call it, wheelchair basketballers and synchronised swimmers, all of whom i have the greatest sympathy with as they have to visit gyms and other houses of pain in order to become good at what they do.

I bet he does crunches... me, i do crunchies, or a mars bar.

Me..? i get an adrenaline rush from the smell of a bacon sandwich and a cup of hot sweet tea. Or being targeted by unruly youths in public spaces. Yep... in the run up to the Olympics i'm going to see more blood, sweat and tears, biceps, calf muscles and shiny thighs than you can shake a stick at. Just don't tell the fencing people... they will have your eye out.

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Who is ukcameraman..?

Freelance Cameraman and owner of Media Attention Ltd. News, Sport, Features and Documentary cameraman to News and Features Broadcasters in the UK and abroad, including the BBC, ITN, SKY, CH4 and 5, CNN, and many others.